Michael Occhipinti

An eight-time JUNO Award nominee for Best Contemporary Jazz Album (including a 2009 nomination for The Sicilian Jazz Project), guitarist/composer Michael Occhipinti’s modern and eclectic approach to jazz and creative music of all kinds has earned him a broad array of listeners and the respect of critics and musicians alike. His newest CD The Sicilian Jazz Project has received global interest and stellar reviews since its Canadian release in the summer of 2008, and the recording was released worldwide in February, 2009. Starting with field recordings of Sicilian folk music that musicologist Alan Lomax made in 1954 and reinterpreting the music as a mix of global genres, modern jazz, and even chamber music, Michael’s Sicilian Jazz Project performed at music festivals across Canada in 2008 and the group has already been invited to Australia, the U.S., Mexico, and Italy in 2009.
The Sicilian Jazz Project showcases the inventiveness of Michael’s writing and his broad palette of guitar sounds, and an ensemble that includes his brother Roberto on bass, Kevin Turcotte (trumpet), Ernie Tollar (saxophones and flutes), Barry Romberg (drums), Louis Simao (accordion), and vocalists Maryem Tollar and Dominic Mancuso, The recording reveals Michael’s ability to take simple source material and arrange it in surprising ways or to compose new music that reinvents Sicilian folk music in a way that crosses genres yet sounds unified and original. Guests on the CD include violinist Hugh Marsh, percussionist Rick Lazar, and members of the esteemed Gryphon Trio who have commissioned Michael to create new music for several of their concerts blending classical music and other genres.
From the outset of Michael Occhipinti’s career, he has focused on creating original music, and in 1994 he formed the 16-piece ensemble NOJO with pianist/composer Paul Neufeld, NOJO, the Neufeld-Occhipinti Jazz Orchestra, boldly draws on an array of influences, including African music, early blues, modern concert music, funk, reggae, and a century of jazz styles, yet the group’s recordings reveal an original and distinct sound. NOJO is one of few large ensembles dedicated to performing its co-leaders’ original compositions exclusively, and all five of the group’s recordings has been JUNO nominated (including the band’s 1995 debut which won the award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album) The band’s music has intrigued a number of renowned guest soloists including sax great Joe Lovano, trombonist Ray Anderson, trumpeter Kenny Wheeler, and most notably clarinetist Don Byron and saxophone giant Sam Rivers, both of whom have recorded and toured with the ensemble. Don Byron appears on You Are Here (1998) and Highwire (2002), and Sam Rivers appears on City of Neighbourhoods (2005) which prompted the Los Angeles Times to describe NOJO as “one of the most imaginative large ensembles on the current jazz scene.” Don Byron has been an especially frequent guest with the NOJO, joining the group for performances at the Jazz Standard in New York, the prestigious Umbria Jazz Winter Festival in Orvieto, Italy, the Stranger Than Paranoia Festival in the Netherlands, and at the Festival International de Jazz de Montreal.
While focusing his large ensemble composing on NOJO, Michael has also had an active small group since 1994 when his debut CD Who Meets Who? was released. In 2000, Michael Occhipinti released the acclaimed and JUNO nominated recording Creation Dream -The Songs of Bruce Cockburn featuring Michael’s ambitious arrangements of music by one of Canada's best-loved songwriters. In October 2008, National Public Radio in the U.S. named Creation Dream as one of six Canadian CDs (alongside piano genius Glenn Gould) Americans should get to know. Recasting Cockburn’s songs in a fresh and creative setting, the recording featured renowned clarinetist Don Byron, and Michael’s quintet. The disc also featured a guest appearance by Bruce Cockburn himself on guitar, who has named the CD as his favourite interpretation of his music.
Michael’s follow-up CD Chasing After Light, was released in 2007 and earned Michael his seventh JUNO Award nomination. Featuring the same stellar quintet of musicians heard on Creation Dream, plus Michael’s brother Roberto as a guest on bass, this recording showcased Michael’s melodic and memorable original compositions and his knack for exploring different guitar sounds and electronics.
Michael Occhipinti is the Artistic Director for CAMMAC Lakefield’s Summer Music Camp and teaches jazz combos at the Royal Conservatory of Music, and has given clinics at universities and high schools across Canada. Michael has been profiled on Bravo's Arts and Minds, CBC television's On The Arts, CBC radio's On Stage and Jazz Beat, CTV’s Mike Bullard Show and TV Ontario's Studio 2. His projects have been praised by critics worldwide, including the American magazines DownBeat and Jazz Times, Italy’s Il Sole and Musica Jazz, and newspapers in India, The Netherlands, and across Canada. He has performed with ensembles and individuals as diverse as The National Ballet of Canada Orchestra, Array Music, Bill Frisell, The Gryphon Trio, Roswell Rudd, Andrea Bocelli, The Maryem Tollar Group, Jeff Coffin (from Bela Fleck and the Flecktones), singer/percussionist Alessandra Belloni, Trey Anastasio (from the band Phish), Barry Romberg’s Random Access, Suba Sankaran, Glenn Hall, The Chris Tarry Group, David Mott, Phil Nimmons, and the funk band Grooveyard.
Quotes
“The Sicilian Jazz Project is an astonishingly salient new sound in the jazz spectrum”
Stephen Pedersen Halifax Chronicle Herald
“Occhipinti’s re-imaginings don’t sound like pure Sicilian music, nor are they intended to. Instead, they’re the sound of a musician who knows where he came from and where he’s going – and that’s a beautiful thing.”
Alex Varty The Georgia Straight (Vancouver)
“Michael Occhipinti's Sicilian Jazz Project was a winning sextet with exotic ethno-musical influences from Sicily and the Mediterranean stitched to contemporary jazz inventions, rousing a Thursday crowd at the Yardbird. With Occhipinti's wonderful arrangements, it was beautifully rendered with the soulful vocal of Dominic Mancuso and a band of Toronto's best (including trumpeter Kevin Turcotte and drummer Barry Romberg). Sicilian yes, but ultimately Canadian.”
Roger Levesque Edmonton Journal
“Canadian guitarist Michael Occhipinti provides a catalogue of guitar sounds in the course of this album...there are heavily electronic ones and acoustic ones, clean ones and in-your-face distorted ones, all appropriate to the demands of a particular tune.”
John Shand Sydney Morning Herald
“Well-conceived, performed and produced, Chasing After Light promises to be one of the most memorable jazz recordings of the year.”
Lesley Mitchell-Clarke Whole Note
“It’s ultimately Occhipinti’s keen sense of marrying the familiar with the unfamiliar that ultimately guides the songs into a new sonic space. Both with his own and with group NOJO, the guitarist’s greatest strength is striking a balance between the accessible and the adventurous, often embracing big band jazz or classic blues sounds in the same breath as catchy funk and/or sprawling avant-garde sounds.”
Kieran Grant The Toronto Sun
“The record is, by any standard, an unmitigated success. Cockburn’s tunes, with their arcing melodies and wide-open chord structures , retain their airy clarity in Occhipinti’s hands; they’re strong enough to flourish in their new, jazzified environment. Occhipinti himself adopts some of his songwriting inspiration’s delicacy, especially when playing acoustic guitar on “Lovers in a Dangerous Time”, but also spins out some forceful and tricky electric work.”
Alex Varty Coast Vancouver
“I didn’t have to worry about whether someone got the lyrics right or appeared not to understand them. One whole area of concern, a big one for me, was removed. Then it was just wonderful to realize this guy made such incredibly beautiful music out of the bits and pieces that were left for him to work with.”
Bruce Cockburn